


some things fall away

by MetaphoricalDragons (metaphoricalzebra)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Gen, Lavellan twins, M/M, Modern Character in Thedas, Modern Girl in Thedas, Multi, Relationships to be added when relevant!, not possession
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23664367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metaphoricalzebra/pseuds/MetaphoricalDragons
Summary: She’s walking home from work, until she isn’t. She’s Jenna, until she isn’t.A woman from our world finds herself suddenly in a body that isn’t her own, being called a name that isn’t her own, in a world that isn’t her own. But the brain adapts.—A tale of the Inquisition, with loose MGiT elements.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	some things fall away

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! I started this last summer, abandoned it with the intention of reworking, and just now came back to it and decided that what I’d written isn’t all that bad.
> 
> As a note: the MGiT elements of this story won’t come into play very much at the beginning- this is going to be part of a larger work in which it’ll have a much more significant role! But for now they’re there for angst and flavor and not much else. I promise it’ll matter eventually!
> 
> This first chapter is VERY exposity, I’m afraid, but we should be getting into the meat and potatoes of the Inquisition storyline starting next chapter! I’m aware that my concept’s a little odd and perhaps clunky, but I’m working on developing it and hope you’ll stick around!

The last thing that she remembered of being Jenna was leaving work.

It had been a slow night- no dive bar was ever busy on a Tuesday, and the gap before most people’s payday meant fewer tips for the musician in the corner. She had considered, on more than one occasion, asking the owner if she could take the middle of the week off- it really wasn’t a bad gig, and it paid decently, but the boredom of playing to a mostly empty bar was near-maddening.

She remembered finishing up for the night, screwing the cap onto the mason jar that held her meager tips and tucking it into her backpack, before giving James, the bartender, a wave on her way out.

She remembered stopping at the crosswalk two blocks from her apartment, slinging her guitar onto her other shoulder while she waited for the LED sign to tell her it was safe to cross.

There wasn’t anything after that.

No, that wasn’t true. There was plenty after that.

\- - -

 _The first conscious feeling she has, coming out of the darkness, is_ agony. _She’s vaguely aware of hands on her face, and someone shouting- though it sounds far away. There’s a sharp tang of copper in the air- was she bleeding? Did she get hit by a car?_

_Slowly, her senses begin to sharpen, beyond the pain that she was feeling all over her body. Her eyes open, blearily, though everything in her field of vision is blurry and hard to make out._

_“Naya!” A male voice makes its way past the ringing in her ears. It sounds choked, as if he were crying. “She’s in here, she’s alive!” He calls to someone else in the room, before his out-of-focus silhouette turns back to her._

_“Just stay with me, lethallan. Illara’s here, she’ll have you feeling right in no time.”_

_She tries to speak, but it’s like she’s too weak to force the sound out. She blinks, trying to clear her vision to try to figure out what the hell is happening around her, but her eyelids feel too heavy to keep open, and she slips back into unconsciousness._

\- - -

For six years, she’s been Nayanna, Second of Clan Lavellan.

She never told anyone that she had not _always been_ Naya. They either wouldn’t have believed her or would have called her possessed and killed her.

The _pain_ that she had woken up in was enough to convince her that she wasn’t dreaming. Even considering the fact that everyone around her had _pointed ears_ , like they were at some sort of renaissance festival. seeing through her initial haze was there when she woke up again, and, bizarrely, she knew him. Not as Jenna- Jenna had never seen this man before in her life. But _Naya_ \- Naya knew that he was her brother, that his name was Rhys and that she loved him more than anything in the world. It would have been off putting if it hadn’t felt so _natural._

It was difficult to explain, but it was as if she had someone whispering in her ear, telling her that it was all right and normal, filling in gaps in her knowledge that ordinarily would have clued everyone in to something being horribly wrong. It wasn’t quite so explicit as that- she hadn’t been hearing voices for six years. But even her initial alarm at the elf ears was quickly soothed with a sense of familiarity. As if she’d always been surrounded by them. 

It was more than just that, though. There was the instant acknowledgement in her mind whenever someone called her “Naya”, as if that had always been her name. There was the way the names of the other members of the clan seemed to pop into her head whenever she looked at them. The feeling that she’d known them her entire life, but without the detailed memories to back it up.

In fact, if it weren’t for that lack of specific memory, she’d almost swear that ‘Jenna’ had been the dream. That she had always been Naya. But entertaining that thought didn’t bring about the same sense of ‘right’ that hearing this new name did. So, it must have been something else. 

She didn’t voice these thoughts to anyone- it was almost as if she _couldn’t._ She tried to, the first few days that she was strong enough to stay awake more than a few minutes at a time. than a few minutes, but the words seemed to stick in her throat, or a wave of nausea would render her speechless. Eventually, it became more convenient to push the memories of her old life aside, once she was sure that she wasn’t dreaming or on some sort of television prank show. What else could she do? She had no idea how she had ended up here, and trying to puzzle out how to get back gave her a splitting headache. 

After six years, there were some days where being Jenna felt like a dream- a distant memory that she couldn’t quite bring into focus. And some days where she felt fully and completely out of her depth- probably because she was an _elf_ in a basically _medieval_ land who could do _magic_. But really- she figured that would throw anyone for a loop.

\- - -

9:41 Dragon

“I need to reset your arm, is that all right?” 

The young man grimaced, but nodded, his jaw set. Huffing out a breath, Naya took hold of the recruit’s shoulder, and without giving him so much as a warning, yanked it back into place with a sickening _pop._

“Sorry.” She winced, reflexively pulling her hands away from him for a moment, before shifting her gaze down to the gash on his opposite forearm. “I need to bandage that arm up, if that’s-“

“No, you’re fine.” The soldier interrupted. “Just make it quick, miss, I- They need every man they can get out there.”

Naya offered a small smile. She’d found it was rare for a human to speak so kindly to an elf. Prejudice transcended even dimensions, it seemed.

“Of course.” She reached for a basin of clean water and a cloth, busying herself with cleaning the blood from his skin.

“Is it true?” She asked, pausing for just a moment to wipe a bead of sweat from her brow, before continuing her work. “They’re saying that… that no one survived the blast.” 

Naya swallowed hard, forcing back a choking breath. She had cried enough the first day after the Temple had exploded to last her some time yet. She shouldn’t be getting her hopes up, but if there was any chance, any chance at all, that Rhys had made it out in time…

“Rumor is that Sister Nightingale and the Seeker have caught who’s responsible, but...” His face was grim, but his eyes were kind. Sympathetic, even. “I ain’t heard of anyone else survivin’. ‘Course I’ve been fightin’ the demons that have been spilling out of those rifts- I wouldn’t know, would I?” 

She gritted her teeth and nodded, not trusting her own voice to answer without breaking. Instead, she tied off the bandage, pulling her hands away and flexing her fingers.

“There you are. Not quite good as new, but maybe a bit better than when you came in.” She turned to clean up her work area, feeling her eyes grow warm with tears that she’d thought she was done shedding. _‘You can’t help anyone if you’re crying your eyes out.’_ She reminded herself, not even noticing as the recruit thanked her and strode back out of the healing tent, strapping his sword belt back on.

She had been careful who to ask about helping, in the aftermath of the explosion. The last thing that she needed was to be imprisoned or executed for apostasy- even if all mages _were_ apostates now. She hadn’t been in Haven when it happened, and had thus happened upon the forward camp first- which was perhaps a blessing. Everyone there was too busy dealing with the _demons pouring out of the fade_ to question the motivations of a lone elf. So when she had offered herself up as a healer, they’d sent her to the rudimentary encampment nearby, where the soldiers who were fighting to keep the demons at bay had set themselves up. And the other healers, stretched thin as they were, didn’t care where she had come from as long as she was helping.

And she was just trying to keep her mind off of Rhys.

Rhys, who she _knew_ had been in the temple, who she shouldn’t have let go alone.

But he was the quiet one, he’d reasoned. He was the better spy- it’d be much easier for him to go alone, get the information, and then they could get back to the clan and away from all these _shems_ and their _war_ as soon as possible. He had rolled his eyes when he said it. She had laughed.

She wished he was there to make her laugh.

“You, Dalish!” The hoarse voice of one of the senior healers startled her away from her thoughts. He was a gruff man, though not truly unkind- even if she had some suspicions about how often he washed his hands. “We’re runnin’ low on bandages in here- should be some more in the supplies outside.”

Naya nodded, tossing the bloodied cloth that she’d used on the recruit into a bucket by the tent’s entrance on her way out. If they’d truly found the monster responsible for all of this, at least she would have some measure of justice for losing the one _goddamned_ thing that she cared about in this _godforsaken_ place. She just had to keep moving. Had to keep herself going, because if she stopped she wasn’t sure that she’d ever stop screaming.

As she worked, Naya found herself thinking that the rifts seemed strangely science-fiction for a world so clearly fantasy based- a thought that surprised her. She had been Naya for so long, remembering anything from Jenna’s life, like the concept of science fiction or dimensions, was unsettling at this point.

She shook the thought away. There was a job to do- and even though Jenna hadn’t known a thing about it, Naya was a talented healer, and these people needed her to help them. Shutting down because she was questioning the nature of her reality wouldn’t help them. Naya knew that- it was just so much _easier_ to forget about that with Rhys there. And breaking down for his sake wouldn’t help anyone either.


End file.
